Seasons Change
by CrushingOnSans
Summary: And of course, death got easier to dole out as he did it more. That's how LV works, after all. That's what it's for . Not a superpower, a mental and emotional protection that was entirely necessary for the sanity of someone who had killed as much as he or anyone else in his world had. He could feel his LV even now, a near-physical weight surrounding his soul, shielding it and his


Sans walked quickly along the path, keeping a sharp eye on the forest that surrounded them. He could feel the eyes on them, and he sneered. Cowards. They knew better than to even fucking try . The forest was far too quiet, and the leaves shifted in a way that was almost more intimidating than the brothers themselves. There wasn't much that was more intimidating than Sans and Papyrus. Mercenaries, known by the entire underground to carry out the will of anyone willing to pay. And if there was dust? Well, then all the better.

He could see the cabin they were here to find off in the distance, and he heaved a bored sigh, snapping a finger over his shoulder. With a nod, Papyrus slipped past him, walking quickly to the door.

These dense motherfuckers should have known better than to hide somewhere so easily found. They were rebels, publicly shaming the crown and all but asking to be dusted. They should have known someone would come, it was just bad luck for them that it happened to be them .

Ah, well. He wouldn't be the one sweeping their dust off the floor. He didn't give a shit.

He approached the cabin easily, and Papyrus kicked in the door before stepping aside, allowing his Lord to precede him.

As he should , Sans thought smugly, letting his magic flare up as he walked into the house as though he owned it.

As the remains of the door slammed against the wall, there was a scream, and Sans cringed with annoyance. He looked to his left, seeing an older monster gathering several smaller figures to their chest as the one he assumed was the strongest took a moment to plant his feet. There was a moment where he looked brave, ready to defend his family to the last breath. Then he recognized who had come, and his eyes filled with terror. Sans suppressed a smile. He loved when they already knew .

Sans came to a stop in front of him, raising one brow as he took in the conditions they had been living in. Dirty dishes stacked in the sink, sleeping bags lining the floor, a half-finished ragdoll sitting in a heap at the base of the only chair in the room. Pitiful.

He heaved a sigh. Now for the boring part. "I am here on behalf of the Queen," he said loudly, his voice monotonous. Papyrus leaned casually against the doorframe, looking for all the world as though he were thinking about taking a nap right then and there. If it wasn't for his hulking figure and the killing intent rolling off of him in waves, it probably would have put the rebels at ease. "I bring accusations against you, of treason. The punishment is death, to be served immediately upon trial. What do you have to say in your defense?"

None of them answered, a small monster in the very back bursting into terrified tears. He spared her an annoyed glance, signalling for Papyrus to shut her up. He pushed himself off the wall in response to the command, but the girl had already clapped both hands over her own mouth, shaking with fear as she tried to calm herself.

"The Queen's rule," began the leader over the sound of her panicked breaths, "is one of death, and we will not sit here as she leads us to ruin!"

Sans sighed, looked up at him, bored with the formalities. "Is that all?"

He looked confused, as though he'd expected his passionate speech to incite some mercy. As though they hadn't heard the same exact speech time and time again. As though a protestation of something he didn't care to change, even if he could, would convince him to spare their worthless lives. "Wha-"

"Papyrus, do your duty." Sans said, stepping back and allowing his mutt to stand next to him. Papyrus looked them all up and down, a blank sort of look in his eyelights that Sans couldn't help but admire. There was a flash of intent, and the monsters looked confused by the emptiness of the feeling. They looked up, the older monster that was keeping the others back looking as though something was dawning on them.

"Guilty."

Sans smirked at the leader, watching as his emotions played freely across his face. "Well? Go ahead."

"Wh-what? Ahead?" His voice was shaking, but there was hope in it, as though he were stupid enough to think that the Royal Judge's pronouncement was anything but final. As though he thought that maybe the brothers would care that they were all about to die.

Sans rolled his eyes, summoning a jagged bone and catching it neatly, swinging it once in his palm before grinning, allowing his eyes to black out.

It was always so much more fun this way.

" Run ."

Sans huffed in annoyance, glaring down at some dust that had found its way onto his shoe. As if these idiots hadn't been annoying enough…

"MUTT!"

Papyrus was at his side in an instant, ready and waiting for orders. Sans didn't bother to speak, instead pointing down at his boot. Papyrus immediately dropped to one knee, using his sleeve to clear the dust away.

While he was thus occupied, Sans allowed his stats to flash before him, a huff finding its way past his teeth as he saw that the kills hadn't quite boosted him an entire LV. Who knows, maybe the one that Papyrus had killed without permission could have done it. He would have to punish him later.

When the boot was clean, Sans looked around them, making certain they had all they needed to call the job done. "I believe we are finished here, Papyrus. Take us home, then inform Alphys that the job is done and we expect payment."

"Yes, m'lord," came the murmured reply, then he took Sans' proffered arm and shortcutted them to their living room.

Sans gave a snort of disgust at the contact, yanking his arm away as soon as they landed and stomping up the stairs. "Do not disturb me, mutt."

"Of course, m'lord."

Sans lay on his back, in his bed, staring up at the ceiling blankly. Sleep didn't come easily anymore. It was worth it, of course, but a high LV did have some side effects that no one seemed to think of before they got a taste of it.

Fuck, that first taste of it…

Sans smirked to himself, stretching out his left arm and watching the powerful bone move precisely as he commanded it to. He sighed after a moment, dropping the arm from where it was hanging in the air and rubbing his eyes.

Well, if he wasn't going to fall asleep…

He pushed himself up to sit, swinging his legs out of the bed and planting them firmly on the ground. The house was completely silent, as was to be expected this late at night. His good-for-nothing brother always managed to find sleep, no matter his LV. It was truly amazing how incredibly useless he always managed to be, despite things like reality.

Opening his door hard enough for it to slam against the opposite wall, Sans waited for a moment, expecting the thump and scramble of his brother falling out of bed. When nothing came, he frowned, eyes narrowing. If that mutt had gone to Muffet's again…

He stalked down the hall, every inch something meant to terrify even without his usual leather and dark metal armor, and slammed Papyrus's door open. His mouth was curled into a snarl, ready to reprimand the skeleton inside for not being ready to come to his master's aid.

It was empty.

He paused, the swore under his breath, looking around angrily. That mother fucker …

Spinning around, he went back to his room, donning his armor quickly before descending the steps. His rage was growing almost past what he knew he would be able to control, not that he had ever found much of a problem with that, and he stomped to the front door.

Papyrus fucking knew how it looked for Sans when he had to come get him from the bar, no matter what he did to him out front, in full view of the other patrons. He had been told, time and time again, to stop being so god-damn shameful , but he just didn't seem to be able to stop! Well, Sans was going to fucking teach him, and this time, he wasn't even going to be so merciful as to wait until they were outside.

Sans paused for a split second to adjust a strap of his breastplate, making sure that he was protected as much as possible. No matter how much LV he had, how dangerous he was seen to be, he still only had 1HP. There was no way he was about to risk some low-life motherfucker stealing all of his hard-earned EXP because of a loose strap.

The pause, however, allowed for just long enough of a silence for Sans to realize that not everything was as quiet as he had first thought. There was some sort of clanking, echoing towards him from the direction of the...closet?

Carefully, he made his way towards the sound, pulling the door open and glaring at its contents. There was nothing, but the sounds were clearlycoming from here.

If it was that fucking cat again, he was going to skin it alive.

Leaning forward, he pushed a few coats aside, peering at the back wall. It was rickety, but serviceable, the same dark wood that made up the trim of the rest of the house. Frowning, he reached out, brushing his fingers along the paneling. As he searched along the cracks and crevices of the closet, there came another sound, a quiet, yet familiar voice murmuring something he couldn't quite understand.

Sans' eyes widened for a moment before he growled, rearing back and driving his fist into the back of the closet. So the mutt had secrets, did he? Perhaps he would benefit from some fucking truth serum, in the usual form.

To his surprise, the back wall of the closet shuddered, then, creaking, began to slide to one side. He just watched it for a moment before he huffed, pressing forward and stepping over the items neatly lined up on the floor of the closet. He had known there was a reason to keep these little-used objects neat and orderly.

Behind the door, there were a set of steps, and Sans started down them, reveling in the click of his low heels, knowing that the sudden silence meant that his brother knew he was coming. There was no sudden scramble to hide anything, no attempt to run or to hide.

He had trained the mutt well, after all.

Coming to the bottom of the steps, he beheld Papyrus, standing straight in front of...what the fuck?

There was some kind of...machine? A tall, hulking, mess of a thing, much like Papyrus himself, standing in the back of a small room. The walls were covered in calculations and blueprints, and tools littered the floor, their user's hands covered in grease.

Sans' eyes narrowed as he looked around, trying to determine the use of this room. He didn't recognize anything of it, but that didn't mean much. He'd never been good with the more practical side of science and math, instead preferring the more theoretical applications of the subjects. He remembered, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Papyrus used to work on the husks of old cars that had found their way underground while he was still in school, but in this moment, he couldn't give less of a shit.

"What the fuck is all this?"

There was a long moment of silence, and Sans turned to look at him, snarling. There was nothing but the usual cold emptiness in his eyes, a trademark of his EXP and Sans' careful training. Seeing the look on his face, Papyrus stiffened slightly, though he tried to hide it.

"I don't know, m'lord."

Before he really knew what was happening, Papyrus was on the floor, the blankness of his eyes somehow having gone even blanker. Sans frowned at himself, shaking his aching fist slightly. He hated it when the LV did that. If he was going to hit something, he wanted to feel the give of their face under his hand, not the strange blank spots in his memory that came with real anger.

Choosing to ignore it for the moment, he growled down at his brother, eyelights flaring. "How the fuck don't you know?"

"I only started working on it a few weeks ago," he answered, his voice flat and his eyes averted, as they should be. "I haven't figured out its purpose yet."

Sans' eyes narrowed, and he sighed dismissively, turning away from his brother's pathetic form to run his fingers over the dials of the machine. "It's certainly…strange-looking," he murmured to himself, pressing a button here and there and turning a few knobs. "Mutt!"

"Yes, m'lord?"

"I will give you a moment to prepare for your p-"

Suddenly, the screen a few inches over Sans' head flickered to life, drawing his attention. There were lines of black code over a white screen, the picture hazy but still readable. He squinted, eyes flicking over the numbers, before he looked over his shoulder at his brother, about to ask a question.

Then there was a burst of light, and he jumped back, more shocked than he could remember himself being in a long time. For a moment, he felt his soul expand in his chest, chasing the feeling of surprise and fear, but then it was gone, and he felt himself settle back into...himself. Spinning around, he stalked towards Papyrus, who was staring at the machine in absolute shock.

He seized him by the collar, tugging him up to eye level and growling, "What the fuck did you build, and what the hell is going on?"

"I...I don't kn-"

Sans scoffed, tossing him aside and pulling back a foot, delivering a swift kick to his brother's ribcage. Papyrus sucked in a sharp breath as one of his ribs gave under the steel toe of Sans' boot, but he didn't otherwise react, all too aware of the consequences if he did.

"You-Fucking- Imbecile!"

Each word was followed by a kick, the sound of cracking bone filling the room alongside the light from the machine that Sans didn't seem to notice expanding, growing closer to them with every moment.

He leaned down, intending to pick Papyrus back up by the collar.

Several things happened, then, one after the other.

Papyrus looked up, catching sight of what was happening behind Sans, and his eyes widened in panic. Reaching out, he caught hold of the other's reaching hand in a move he'd never dared use before, using the leverage to toss his brother off to the side and away from the machine.

Sans, enraged beyond what he could ever remember being that his brother had dared lay a hand on him, felt his anger blank him out.

The light from the machine, already so close, finished reaching the first figure it could find, enveloping Papyrus and pausing before, all at once, vanishing completely and taking the tall, broken skeleton with it.

The only sound in the basement was the clack of Sans' heel as he crossed the room, slowly coming back to himself as he realized his brother was gone.

He knew he should feel something about this, other than a smug satisfaction, but he wasn't entirely sure what .

Not that he would ever admit that aloud.

There is a moment of silence, followed by another, as Sans just stares at the place where Papyrus just was. He's not really sure...what? But he's missing something. He's pretty sure it's one of those things that used to cause him so much pain, before he learned to make it go away. Papyrus' LV is lower, so he still sometimes get these...nightmares, dreams that make him wake up looking like his soul is tearing in half. Afterwards, he used to want to hold Sans to his chest, as though double-checking that he was still there.

When he had put a stop to that, Papyrus had cried. Big, messy, orange tears that flowed down his face silently, once Sans made it clear that he would not listen to blubbering. It would have maybe been tolerable in a child, Toriel knows he'd put up with enough of it while he actually was a child, but for fuck's sake, he had almost been twenty. He had to grow up at some point.

Sans scoffed, kicking his boot against the floor as he tried to think of what to do. Papyrus was gone, and he-

There was another flash of light, making him jump before he swung around, summoning a bone club and snarling, fucking daring it to take him too. This time, however, it was different. Instead of a growing ring, the light was focused on a single point, growing brighter by the second until it manifested in a specific shape, gaining color and definition all at once until suddenly, the shape was solid, stumbling forward into the room with a startled "Mweh!"

Sans kept his defensive stance, though he was beginning to wonder at the necessity of it as he took in the other's appearance. He was wearing a white T-shirt covered by a dark gray...leather? breastplate. He had matching gray shoulder pads, decorated in yellow and blue, and dark blue pants tucked into boots that were the same color blue as the trim on his shoulders and breastplate. His eyes were wide, from fear or surprise, Sans didn't know or care.

The newcomer turned to look at him, his upset turning to curiosity, and Sans frowned in recognition. That was his face, or at least what he would look like if he was a fucking weakling who ran away from fights instead of confronting them head-on. Instead of dark purple, like his own, the other's eyelights were a bright blue, brighter even than those god-awful boots.

What the fuck was going on?

"Uh…" this...clone, spoke up, tilting his head to one side. "Hi! Not to be rude or anything, but who are you?"

Sans gave him an annoyed glance, trying to decide if he should be upset that the sound of what was apparently his own voice grated his ears. It was the cheerfulness of it, he decided. It was fucking awful.

"Shut up," he growled, lowering the bone club and keeping his careful gaze on the other in case he decided to attack. He had seen a few sick fucks out on the streets try the whole "sweet" thing, and he was far past believing it. It felt like a different situation, however, considering that this particular monster had come out of a mysterious machine hidden in his basement.

It was strange to watch his own face take on a look that was decidedly offended. He didn't think he'd ever seen himself make that face, though he was sure by now that he knew what it felt like on his face. Angry, in any form, was easy nowadays.

"Well, you don't have to be rude about it, geez."

Sans looked at him incredulously. "Excuse me?"

His doppelganger shrugged slightly, looking a bit nervous. "I mean, it's really not very nice to tell people to shut up. We don't even know each other. You don't seem very nice when you talk like that, and that's no way at all to make friends!"

Sans just looked at him for a moment before snorting derisively. "Excuse me, princess. Shut the fuck up, please. "

"Hey!" Sans struggled not to look surprised by the tone the other had suddenly taken on. "Watch your language!"

"I am the Magnificent and Malicious Sans, and you will obey my commands!" he growled back, clenching his fists at his sides. He didn't give a fuck if it was a clone, nobody told him what to do.

This brighter version of himself, the imbecile, didn't seem to care about anything he said after he heard him say his name. Instead, he smiled hugely, all of his annoyance seeming to disappear in one swoop, "Well, hello! My name is Sans, too! That is so cool! I've always wanted to meet-"

" Shut up , you fucking moron. Did I give you permission to speak?"

The other made a face. "Why would I need permission to speak?"

"Because your damn voice is grating on my nerves!"

The other Sans laughed slightly, looking incredibly amused. "But we have the same vo-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

His bone club was up before he really knew what he was doing, swinging in the other's direction and full of intent to harm. The other's eyes widened, and he ducked backwards, missing the swing by a tooth's breadth. "Hey, wait-"

Sans swung again, snarling, but the other Sans' eyelights seemed to harden slightly, and he summoned his own weapon, a bone club surrounded by the other's blue magic. It met Sans' in midair, and he found himself surprised by the jarring strength of it.

Taking a step back, he growled quietly, the sound rumbling deep in his chest for a moment before he struck again. Before he could blink an eye, however, the other ducked under the blow, swinging his own weapon out and catching Sans in the legs before spinning, dodging the wild swing of his weapon as he fell to the side.

Before he could even roll over, he felt the press of the other's summoned club on the back of his ribcage.

"What is wrong with you?"

Growling, he kicked out to the side, bringing the other down with a yelp and lifting himself quickly to his knees as soon as he felt the contruct leave his vertabrae. Spinning around, he caught his copy around the throat, slamming him to the ground before he could do anything to react. He smirked down at the other, enjoying the desperate look on his face as he dropped the bone, reaching up to attempt to push his hands away.

Sans let go of the bones of the other's neck with one hand, capturing his wrists and effectively pinning him to the ground, helpless.

"Now," he growled, letting his magic flare up in a show of his admittedly impressive strength. "Where the fuck is my property?"


End file.
